


Snow

by sprexico



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 08:33:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6975601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprexico/pseuds/sprexico
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Bucky remembers things wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow

It isn't lying, exactly, what he says to Steve. He does remember every one of them. 

Sometimes the memories are just... wrong. There are parts that shouldn't be there. Bucky remembers a mission in Armenia, the guy with the cats; remembers holstering his pistol on the belt of the uniform he shipped out in. It's wrong, but it's there. He doesn't forget.

_Longing. Rusted. Seventeen_.

After the river, after he pulled Steve or not Steve from the water, he should have gone back. But he didn't, and he supposes it's because it doesn't last forever. You can program anything, but it wears off. His mission was to eliminate the target and return. He didn't do either of those things. He pulled Steve or not Steve from the river, and he ran.

There were some shaky weeks. Lost in a new place every day; grab a train, a boat, a car. Remember, move on. Wake up grasping at someone who isn't there. Pull him out of the river, again, again. Shake it off, move on. Next town. Next town. Next town. 

_He will find you,_ he thinks, but he's not sure if he's talking about Steve or someone else. 

_Daybreak. Furnace._

Romania. A safehouse. It's August but he dreams about Christmas. 

Christmas was Steve, laughing and warm. A sweater wrapped around his thin frame, a mug of something - hot chocolate? or was that overly nostalgic? - in his hands. There were family and gifts, but all Bucky remembers is Steve. This could be any Christmas, he can't place it. 

He remembers, on waking, the Christmas where it didn't snow. Hands, warm mouths. He remembers knocking heads, hard; a nosebleed, Steve laughing through it. He doesn't care if it wasn't real. He holds onto it. 

Plums. Oranges. Christmas always meant fruit. Bucky shakes it off and goes to the market. He has nothing to run from here.

_Nine. Benign. Homecoming._

He hates the new guy. Or he doesn't, but something in the bottom of his stomach bristles when he sees them. It's easier than noticing that the new guy looks at him like a weapon. This isn't what he thought coming back would be like. 

_One. Freight Car._

After everything, after they're safe - which, Bucky has come to realise, is a relative term - he finds that it hurts the most when you stop running. It only takes him a night, desperate and wheezing, to understand that he's forgotten how to thaw. Steve looks at the new guy ( _Sam, Sam, he has a name, Buck_ ) and Bucky knows he's a liability like this. He remembers all of them, but that's one thing. Feeling them, feeling this, feeling seventy years of loss and hurt and every gap and fissure and scar? Well. 

Before he goes back on ice, he thinks about a question he asked Steve all those years ago. _Did it hurt? Is it permanent?_

He's pretty sure he has the answer now.


End file.
